Saturday, January 30, 1999
City choosing a chief its own way
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The peculiar ritual of picking Cincinnati's top cop is under way.
Written tests and results of oral exams from 10 high-ranking officers are being graded. Test results will whittle the field to three. From that batch, and nowhere else, City Manager John Shirey will pick one to replace Chief Michael Snowden.
Choosing a chief this way strikes some as a good way to protect the sensitive position from political influence. But others say limiting the field to in-house candidates keeps new ideas from surfacing.
It's a system voters overwhelmingly decided to keep two years ago, when a charter amendment that would have allowed for broader searches was rejected.
Still, it has folks on both sides asking whether this is any way to pick the chief of a 1,000-member force.
The Cincinnati Civil Service Commission sent tests Friday to be graded by SHL Landy Jacobs, a consulting firm in State College, Pa. Results are expected by the end of February.
Five assistant chiefs and five captains took written tests Jan. 20 and finished oral boards this week. Candidates include — for the first time — a woman and a minority.
The only woman to take the test was Capt. Cindy Johns. Capt. Phyllis Caskey was eligible but declined. Lt. Col. Ronald Twitty, the first African-American in the division's history to be promoted to assistant chief, also is in the running.
Other candidates are: Lt. Cols. Richard Biehl, Richard Janke, James Smith, Thomas Streicher Jr. and Capts. David Gregory, Kenneth Jones, G. Alan Matthews and Richard Schmalz Jr.
The candidates have a lot in common. They all attended local high schools and the University of Cincinnati. Several were in the same recruit classes and watched one another rise through the ranks.
The most senior candidate is an assistant chief who has held the rank since July 1997. Civil-service rules say, at minimum, a candidate must hold the rank of captain for two years.
Critics of the selection process say that requirement may make for an inexperienced leader. But those in the business of picking police chiefs say Cincinnati's system may be as good as any.
Cities without a civil-service system have an easier time firing bad chiefs, said Craig Fraser, director of management services for the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, D.C. But a broader process of selection doesn't necessarily make for a better chief, he said.
The best thing about the civil-service system is that a chief can't be fired for political reasons, local Fraternal Order of Police Chief Keith Fangman said.
“When you're talking about an occupation that deals with life and death every day,” he said, “there's no room for political meddling.”
The worst thing about Cincinnati's selection process is it's highly limiting in terms of who the candidates are, said Mort Feldman, executive vice president of the Miami-based National Association of Chiefs of Police.
“But if the citizens are happy,” he said, “you don't fix what ain't broke.”
There has been no public outcry to change the selection process since voters rejected a change in 1997. Dr. Milton Hinton, president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, had been vocal in wanting to change the process. He said he no longer is taking a position on the selection process.
But Cincinnati Police Spc. Cecil Thomas, president of the Sentinel Police Association of about 250 black officers, says the city's way of picking chiefs is outdated.
“Other cities bring in new, innovative ideas,” he said. “But Cincinnati is stuck with what we've got.”
Both Spc. Thomas and Officer Fangman say rank-and-file officers want a chief who knows the community's needs and will stand up for officers when they are right.
The nationwide trend in selecting police chiefs focuses more on picking someone who is good with community relations than on their ability to be tough with law and order, said Kim Kohlhepp, manger of the center for testing services for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
The key is finding a balance in someone who is a good lead er, said Ed Porter, who served with the Cincinnati Police Division for 25 years, retired and became chief in Independence, Ky.
Chief Porter said it made more sense for him to leave Cincinnati when he reached retirement age and take an opportunity elsewhere, but he said Cincinnati's system gives young officers the encouragement that they can rise in the ranks.
Any selection process has its flaws, and Chief Porter said the ideal way to pick a chief would be based on merit, performance and skills — scored from the top down.
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